Roots of Misfortune

by Seth Pevey

  Min Ji threw Tina’s hand off of her, so that it clunked against the door jamb. It looked like it hurt, and Tina stumbled forward, into her and into the baby, wedging herself between the door so that it couldn’t be closed. This was too much to bear—Min Ji grabbed a fistful of the woman’s red, curly hair and pulled, yelling out for G.D.

  But he was already there. He’d come up behind her and was watching them tussle.

  “Grab her!” Min Ji said to her man, and gave Tina a rough slap across the face. “You shouldn’t have come here, bitch!”

  G.D. obeyed: he brought her, kicking and screaming, into the piss-smelling room where Felix and Melancon sat staring at the dim walls. Min Ji watched Felix’s face when they brought her in. It was just as she suspected. It had been love that had led Tina here. She could sense it between them. Love and doom mixed together and it was all under her power. The thought of a strange tingling below.

  She watched, reveling in it: a young man’s eyes lighting up with love, and then faltering like a candle that had been dropped down a deep hole.

  This was what life was made for.

  Twenty-Three

  Helpless, anchored to the chair, trembling with thoughts of the blade’s edge, Felix Herbert had questions. What was it like to have one’s throat slit? To gasp through a split trachea as your lungs flooded with your own blood? How quick would it be? How soon would there be the relief of darkness filling in around your eyes to replace everything?

  The clear imagining of awful moments before they came to pass—this was how Felix feared. It was an emotion threatening to overwhelm his mind, shut down his faculties. The sweat dripped off his nose as he grappled with the terror, trying to avoid panic and keep himself in the game.

  But as strong as that fear was, it was about to be overpowered by a feeling even stronger.

  Because he saw her being dragged into the room: saw her red hair bouncing and smelled her piney perfume as she was brought, screaming and thrashing and cursing, into the middle of this horrible situation. He saw her and he realized that there was a thing more vital than the fear he felt for his own neck. In that moment, his own approaching demise seemed eclipsed, trivial.

  What was she doing here?

  Her throat, her blood, her lungs. They were here, and more vulnerable and precious than his own. Was this what love was?

  Perhaps.

  Probably.

  Definitely, yes.

  He loved her—or at least he cared more about protecting her, saving her, preserving her, than he cared about his own bodily integrity. In that moment, he knew what it really meant.

  He loved her. He loved his partner Melancon, his sad parents, Scrappy, his dead brother, and Tomás who had raised him. He loved them all. Even if it was all he could do to go to his grave filled with love, at least that was something. A life worth living.

  But Tina Green was of a different mind, from the look of her. She hadn’t yet resigned, at least not as she was thrown into the lounge. She wasn’t ready to fade out musing on love and affection. Watching the way she wriggled and spat and writhed, it was clear she’d rather go to her grave kicking at the coffin door.

  But the long man held her, grinning his cruel crescent, immune to the tiny ball of chaos he clutched before him.

  Felix admired her futile attempts to claw her way free from his grip. He watched her with that strange mix of love and fear and pride. But also pity—the pity one has for a scrappy friend in an overwhelmingly outmatched fight. The long-armed man held her under the armpits, lifted her like a child’s doll. Her legs thrashed, and there was a beastly quality to her resistance, like a trapped animal trying to sink its teeth into the man’s hands and arms.

  But he was just too large and powerfully built, and carried her like he might have carried an armful of dead firewood, dropped her on the floor there, in front of them. She scowled up at G.D.

  The man stepped back and crossed his arms, taking the measure of Tina, before turning to Felix. “I see you’ve brought me another present. A token of your penance perhaps? I don’t think she is really my style. There is something far too…warm about her. Weak. A frailty. But I don’t suppose we can afford to send back personal deliveries out here in the swamp. We get them so rarely. So, I suppose she will have to do.”

  Felix felt a cold bile rising in his gut.

  “And how are you my dear? What’s your name?” G.D. asked the angry woman sprawled out on the floor.

  She breathed heavily and barred her teeth to him, saying nothing. A delicate trickle of blood ran from her nose.

  “Well, you are in luck. You’ve come just in time for the show. Just in time to see the door between two worlds thrown open.”

  The shadows of the day were getting longer, redder, final. A curtain had been drawn over the sky. The slanted light that had before fallen into the room was fleeting. Min Ji was nowhere to be seen in the lounge—perhaps she wasn’t as tough as she thought. Not tough enough to watch men and women being butchered. Like a person who’ll eat the meat but can’t pull the trigger, Felix thought.

  G.D. produced the kris from where he had hidden it behind the couch, and stepped towards Felix. He spun the knife point on the callous of his index finger and curled his lips at Melancon. As he circled around behind the detectives, Felix braced himself for the end, waiting to gulp the cold, severing metal.

  A light came on behind him and Felix released the air in his lungs.

  That lamp went on and Felix could now really see Tina. He spent his final moments sizing up this girl who he’d wanted to save. Her flaming hair, honey eyes scrunched by the fierce face she’d put on.

  Poor thing.

  She’d have been better off if he’d never stepped into Mick’s that morning. Better off if he’d just talked to the owner. Better off if he’d waited for Melancon, followed a different track. Better off if he’d done nothing at all. All he’d done for her is introduced her to a nice grave, a nice place out in the swamp to have her throat slit, for her bones to sink down and be forgotten. She’d never get to be a vet, a zookeeper, or anything. All she’d be able to do in this short life is entertain a few drunken convention goers. To rub up against suit pants. To pour drinks and wear a painted face to hide herself.

  And it was all his fault. He could almost laugh at the deep misfortune of it all.

  12 Dating Foibles to Avoid, the viral headline would read. You won’t believe number 8!

  The levity did nothing to still his fear. He looked at her pale arms, her white lab coat, admiring how she could look so wholesome and, well, unlike a stripper with the simple change in wardrobe. He wanted to fill his eyes with her before the knife. He wanted to imagine that she was a vet tech just getting off work. The lab coat so mature, adult, the pockets so filled with instruments and…

  What is that?

  It hit him like a thousand volts. There it was. A part of her shape that was not her. A bulge there in her coat pocket. A sliver of black plastic sticking up out of it like a totem of relief itself. All at once, Felix withdrew his resignation. A jolt of electric hope ran through his body. This story wasn’t over yet.

  It was the taser—the same one he had given her for protection that day in the park. The brilliant woman had brought the taser and somehow, through some oversight or rushed neglect, she’d gotten it past G.D.’s guard. Maybe he had taken her as less of a threat, or maybe he had just forgotten. Perhaps his thirst for blood was getting the better of him. What was true and certain, is that the taser was there. Felix saw it. Like all hope and goodness of the world, the taser existed. It was a second chance.

  Tina turned to him and their eyes met. The scowl left her face and the sharp angles went lovely and round. Felix twitched his chin a bit towards the weapon. She nodded, her warm eyes filling with resolve.

  G.D. was still off somewhere behind them. It sounded like he was laying out a tarp. Must protect the carpet from all that sacrificial blood, Felix thought, knowing that at any moment the blade could come down
and rive through his jugular, core his Adam’s apple, slice through the tendons and have his head rolling down on that same carpet.

  But her smile lifted him past all those thoughts. She smiled at him as if things were going to work out just fine, palmed what was in her left pocket, and stood up.

  “You know all the girls talk about you,” Tina said.

  The rustling of tarp ceased, and G.D. came back around, twirling the kris in his hand, standing over her.

  “Oh yeah? And what do these clucking hens have to say?”

  “They say you are magic.” Tina raised her eyes to him, her arms at her sides.

  He seized her, pulling her slight form towards his. “You have no idea, little chicken, just how magic I am.”

  She stared at him with eyes full of innocence. “Why don’t you show me some magic then...”

  He grabbed her by the throat and lifted her head towards his lips.

  “Perhaps we should put another soul in you for the spirit world first,” G.D. said.

  Felix considered calling out to her: telling her not to wait any longer, that it was now or never. Do it now, now, now! He considered trying to stand up and rush the man, his chair wagging behind him. Maybe he could do something. Anything, so long as it gave her enough time to make good with each and every volt she had at her disposal. His big palms were on her butt now, inches away from discovering her secret weapon, and their final hope of salvation.

  But in the end, Tina didn’t need Felix’s help. She did it all on her own.

  She pretended to swoon, helpless in his arms, waiting until his muscles went lax and the smile returned to his face. That was to be an image that Felix would forever remember. The image of a grim, bloodthirsty smirk hovering over her. Lecherous, bloodstained hands groping her form.

  “I have some magic too,” she said. “Want to see?”

  And then G.D. stiffened. The smile on his face tightened, his full lips pulling back until Felix could see past his canines and into the gold recesses of his molars. The long-armed man’s hands went into fists, releasing Tina from their grip. He took one step back and jiggled like an olive tree being shaken for harvest.

  Tina had stuck the twin prongs of the handheld stun taser into the right side of his torso, where they were busily delivering their juice. G.D. continued to tremble slightly, and then his shoulders hunched and he fell forward, forcing Tina to dodge. The thud of him, like a falling tree, echoed through the house.

  That gave way to Min Ji screaming from the other side of the shack. They could hear her calling out from the other rooms, heading towards them, asking G.D. if he was OK.

  But Tina acted quickly, stepping on the villain’s broad back and scooping up the kris in one motion. She slipped behind the two detectives and used the blade to cut Felix’s zip tie, then Melancon’s.

  A second later G.D. was groaning. A few moments after that he was rising, the terrible hunch of him surging upright. Until, at last, he stood facing the two detectives, who were now able-bodied and free.

  Felix was thrilled to, at the very least, have the chance to die on his feet. The Vikings figured that was the only way to get to heaven, didn’t they?

  Valhalla and You: a Traveler’s Guide

  “Cut the power Min Ji! Do it now!” G.D. roared, not taking his eyes off the trio. The light footfalls that had been headed toward them stopped and receded into the other direction.

  Felix grabbed the chair that has been his prison and raised it above his head, ready to let it crash across the body of the killer who loomed before him. But it seemed G.D. had regained himself enough to slide out of the way at the last second. Before Melancon could stop her, Tina lunged at the man again, the kris in her one hand and the taser in the other. But G.D. stuck out a long, stiff arm and had her on the ground with ease.

  Now both Melancon and Felix went for him. The long-armed man crouched to face them, and the detectives circled, arms spread wide, looking for some feint of lost balance, some slowness to react, some weakness. But before they could find an opportunity, the room went dark, and the electric hum of the house fell quiet.

  Though there were still slivers of dusk to be seen pouring in through the gaps in the curtains, the moment of uncertainty and blindness allowed G.D. to slip out of the back of the room. His boot heels could be heard stomping into the dark recesses of the house.

  The three of them pawed at their surroundings, trying to gain orientation. A wave of pins and needles crashed in Felix’s thighs and the blood rushing into his head sent him stumbling against a sofa.

  Finally, he found the softness of Tina’s shoulder, pat her a few times, asking if she was alright.

  “I’m fine. Just a little shaken up”

  “You saved us.” Felix felt the need to pinch himself, or otherwise shake off his disbelief that he was standing here with her and his partner, still alive. Melancon was quick to snap them out of the torpor.

  “We aren’t saved yet Felix. We got no idea what he is planning. Let’s assume he is going for his shotgun and get the hell out of here quickly,” the old detective whispered.

  “But we don’t know the way out, and I doubt we want to start exploring,” Tina said.

  Felix managed to trip his way over to the curtain and draw it back, revealing the dusky light behind the window— a glow terrestrial enough to assure him that this was no post-sacrificial tunnel towards the spirit world, no Valkyrie ride.

  “Do you have your phone?” Melancon yelled at Tina.

  She fished around in her lab coat pockets until she found her smartphone. “No Service.”

  “You keep trying. Felix you help me break through this window. Pick up one of those chair legs. We will climb right out onto the deck and run off towards the road.”

  Felix palmed one of the broken legs, weighing it. Without hesitation, he took a baseball stance and put his full strength into the picture window overlooking the back porch. A spider’s web of cracks ran a chaotic course across the glass but it did not shatter.

  “Again,” Melancon yelled now, abandoning his whisper.

  When it shattered on the second strike, the large pane rained shards of itself on the carpet. Felix reckoned the sound must have been unmistakable throughout the house. But in the silence that follows such a shattering noise, they heard another sound, less certain in its origin.

  The old detective raised a hand for silence. “That’s a boat engine,” he finally said. “Fucker is trying to escape down the river. We’ve got to make this quick.”

  Indeed, it was coming from just behind the house. Through the busted window, Felix could barely make out the frothing water of the little tributary where it lapped up against the back yard of the cabin. He spied the white bubbles of water rebelling against a propeller, the craft itself obscured by darkness and cypress trees.

  Felix cleared the remaining shards of glass with the curtain wrapped around his hand, and then laid the cloth over the jagged ruins of the window. The three of them were each able to make a wide stride over the wall, and found themselves standing on a porch that wrapped nearly around the entire house. They could now more clearly see the sliver of bayou. The water had been disturbed. Clouds of soupy mud plumed up from the river bottom and tiny waves troubled the shore. The sounds of the engine was now unmistakable, but growing dull and distant as it receded.

  Melancon urged them down the nearby stairs.

  Back in the jungle of a front yard, dodging blue gnomes and pink flamingoes, Tina stopped and shouted.

  “Signal!” she cried, holding the phone up to Melancon.

  Seconds later the old detective was talking into the receiver, a weird serenity coming into his voice. “Yes. Listen, we need backup.”

  He offered them a curt explanation, details on their location, and an emphatic urge that they hurry, that there was a hostage involved, and then he hung up the phone.

  “It’s going to be too late by then,” Felix said. “We know this bayou goes to the Pearl, which goes down to the
Gulf. If he can get out to the open water, he’s gone. Who knows where he could wash up?”

  “That’s not going to happen Felix.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  Melancon kicked over one of the lawn gnomes with the bottom of his foot. “I’ve got an idea. Let’s go.”

  They ran past Tina’s stolen Jeep in the driveway, down the oyster road where they piled into the El Camino. Perhaps out of pure stubbornness, the old car had picked that very moment to refuse to turn over. Twice. Three times. Melancon kept turning the key until the black smoke finally rushed out of the tailpipe in a volcanic eruption of relief.

  He peeled out, sending the crushed oyster shells in a spray against the wet boughs of the cypress trees. The back of the vehicle wiggled like a dancer and she threw herself forward and back onto the state-maintained highway.

  For the first time, Felix allowed himself a few deep breaths. He stilled the flashing premonitions of blood and death that had been haunting him since the shrimp net rendered him helpless. He could see his partner going slack in the driver’s seat as well, but the deep lines etched into his forehead looked new and rather permanent. Tina, crammed in the middle between them, had a tear running down her cheek. Her eyes were wide and shell-shocked and she sniffled quietly.

  Felix felt his hand going into hers, and gripping it tight. He looked over her at his partner. “You OK Melancon? You have to realize what that guy was trying to do. Trying to get into your head like that. He’s probably full of shit…”

  The green tunnel of the swamp rushed around them, Melancon’s foot welding the pedal to the floor.

  “Not now Felix. Plenty of time for that after we bag this son of a bitch. Honey, I need you to reach under that seat. Give me what you find.”

  She let go of Felix, dug around and pulled out a long metal crowbar, handed it to the old detective. Melancon let it sit in his lap, clutching it with his right hand and steering with the other.

  He pulled off onto a familiar side road and stopped the car in a parking lot. Felix was filled with a deep sense of déjà vu. What was this place, and why did it feel so familiar? He watched his partner white knuckle the crowbar, listened to him grinding his teeth, and tried to remember the significance of this quiet spot with its green tree trunks. Finally, he followed Melancon’s eyes.